


rot is also what love is

by boos



Category: The Goldfinch (2019), The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 09:53:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25967683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boos/pseuds/boos
Summary: It's only later in the night when the two of them are back home watching some movie on TV, much drunker than they had been at the party, that Theo goes, “Kitsey asked me if you were my boyfriend.”(or: boris and theo at four different parties, stretched across time)
Relationships: Theodore Decker/Boris Pavlikovsky
Comments: 14
Kudos: 159





	rot is also what love is

**Author's Note:**

> title is from a poem called "body" in _adonis: selected poems_ translated by khaled mattawa:
> 
> "Rot is also a heart  
> rot is also childhood  
> rot is also what love is.”

Boris spends his Saturday night keeping a blackout drunk Theo from leaving their room, bounding downstairs, and interrupting the girls’ night Xandra is hosting. It is, Boris feels, an insurmountable task, like Atlas bearing the world on his shoulders.

Theo is very annoying and very determined when he is drunk, always refuses to listen, often likes to try and sabotage his life in a variety of delicious ways that Boris has to clean up. However, he will not let Theo sabotage _his_ life, and he knows the moment Theo steps foot downstairs that it will be bad, that Theo will do many stupid things and Xandra will get upset and then Boris will not be allowed to stay here anymore, and if Boris cannot stay here he does not know what he will do.

So he corrals Theo, physically blocks him from leaving out the door and tackles him to the bed more than once, causing them to punch and hit each other for a while in the way that they do until Theo gets so exhausted that he has to either stop or throw up. Boris will take the vomit; he knows how to clean that up.

“Can’t you get more drinks for us then? If you’re gonna keep me fucking prisoner up here.” Theo slurs, his face red from a mixture of things: anger, the alcohol, Boris holding him down.

“Yah, yah,” Boris says, pushing the tangle of his hair out from his face, “Give me one moment.” He figures Xandra will be too preoccupied to notice him swiping something, and anyways, she will probably think they are just trying to have a fun time, not that Theo is upstairs already a raging alcoholic at fourteen, two seconds away from killing himself or lighting this house on fire.

Popchyk is laying at the top of their bed, snoozing on the pillows. Boris stumbles over to pick him up and place him back down on Theo’s chest. “Watch him,” he tells the dog, wagging his finger down at the two of them like he’s making a point. Popchyk just starts licking Theo’s face and Boris takes this as an affirmation before he leaves the room, making sure the door is firmly shut behind him.

Downstairs smells like roses and orange and vanilla, such a mix of girly perfume that it makes Boris want to gag for a moment. Xandra and her girlfriends are a little too drunk to notice him as he creeps down the stairs. They have something playing on the TV in the background, some reality show with women who look just like them slapping each other across dinner tables.

Boris opens the fridge as quietly as he can and spots beer bottles, ready for the taking. They’re the cheap, gross kind that are always particularly sour when they come back up the other way, but they will do. Boris does not care that much about what alcohol he is drinking as long as he is drinking, and so he grabs the cold bottles and shoves them under his – or really, Theo’s – large sweater, the cool glass touching the skin of his stomach and making the muscles there jump.

Feeling brave, he also grabs a half-empty carton of takeout that he knows has been in the fridge for a couple days. It’s chow mein when he peeks inside, a little bit smelly, but just as he’s about to turn around and find a fork, he hears a voice go from behind him, “Stealing our food again, huh?”

It’s Xandra, of course, looking at him with scrutiny as she wobbles a little on her feet, chewing her stupid watermelon gum so loudly that the smacking noise drives Boris insane. Usually, he did not mind her at all – he thought she was hot, and maybe felt a little pity for her, mostly, for living a life like this out of choice – but as of now, she stands in the way of him getting back upstairs as fast as he can, leaving even more room for Theo to stumble down here like an idiot.

“It was – Theo wanted it,” he says, Theo’s name sounding like _tee-oh_ in his accent.

Xandra rolls her eyes at him. “Of course,” she snorts, but surprisingly drops it as she turns to pour more wine into a glass on the counter, probably what she was here to do in the first place. “You know, I don’t ever say much about you being here all the time, but it’s a little weird, don’t you think? What do the two of you even _do_ up there all day?” She is drunk enough that the question comes out just genuinely baffled.

The answer his brain immediately supplies him with is Theo’s naked shoulder for some reason, or his mouth and the way it looks after Boris has just kissed it, all red and swollen. He thinks of Theo’s back pressed against his chest in sleep, the bones of his spine knotty and easy to count through his skin, something that Boris would never admit to doing out loud, but has done, only when Theo gets so drunk that he snores as he sleeps, only when Theo would never remember the feeling of his touch.

Boris shrugs, trying very hard to keep the beers hidden under his sweater without looking suspicious. “Read. Sleep. Listen to music… and do homework,” Boris tacks on quickly, shifting from foot to foot, because that’s what he thinks he should say.

In a rare moment of drunken kindness, Xandra looks at him with something other than annoyance and says, “He’s lucky he has you,” before taking a large swig of her wine and walking back over to her friends. Boris blinks at the compliment, but shakes it off quickly as he ascends upstairs, trying hard not to focus on whatever it is that she meant.

It is obvious to Boris that Theo’s mood has shifted immediately upon reentering the room. Something about Theo makes his sadness leak out of him like poison and affect everything in his vicinity, bogging it all down with a depression that leaves a bitter taste in Boris’ mouth.

He shoves one of the beers at Theo and Theo takes it without much excitement, shucking the cap off and downing it as fast as he can. Boris looks at him wearily, expecting sadness to spill from his mouth, talks of suicide and throwing himself into the pool to drown, but he keeps quiet. He just looks out the window and up at the moon, the moonlight a reflection in his glossy eyes, and the two of them don’t say much else until Boris rearranges them for bed. The carton of Chinese food sits on the bedside table, forgotten, next to an ash tray of Boris’ cigarette butts.

Boris finds Theo’s iPod thrown haphazardly on the floor in a pile of clothing and fishes it out for them to listen to, untangling the earbuds as he sticks one in Theo’s ear and then one in his own. He scrolls and picks a random song to play, and then nothing is spoken for a while as Boris lays behind Theo with his arm slung over Theo’s waist, the two of them pressed close together even on a hot night like this.

Theo’s voice pierces through the stale air of the room all of a sudden. “I think my mom would have liked you.” 

He says it in garbled speech, mostly muffled into the side of his pillow, but it stills Boris’ breathing. It makes the nighttime seem clear and sad. Boris tightens his grip on Theo’s waist like he can’t help it, and he imagines what Theo’s mom must have looked like. Tries to remember a crystal clear image of his own mother, the definition of her face and how she looked when she smiled, not just some fuzzy amalgamation of a woman he thinks he remembers. When he finds that he can’t, he presses his face into the back of Theo’s shirt, the cotton fabric reeking of chlorine so strongly that they’ll have to throw it away someday if they ever want to stop smelling like the bottom of a pool.

He cannot imagine a mother so loving like Theo describes his own as. He cannot imagine a mother like that adoring him at all. Xandra will compliment him downstairs with dazed eyes when she is already through one bottle of wine, but Theo’s mother would press her red lips flat together and shake her head at all that he has done to drag Theo down with him. Not that it hadn’t already been there in Theo, not like he would have ended up a saint if he and Boris had not become friends – the only way is if his mother had lived – but Boris just cannot believe, in his heart of hearts, that she would have liked him at all.

They fall asleep listening to Mazzy Star, earbuds jammed uncomfortably into their ears and the wires getting all tangled up as they twist and turn in the night, but even in sleep Boris cannot escape the large, crowding sadness that drips down his throat like liquid. He dreams of his mother and he dreams of Theo’s mother and he dreams of New York, tall brown buildings with garbage everywhere like in the movies, and it is all colored with a filmy layer in front of it, like it is something he can reach out to, can dream about, but never actually touch.

Theo, already fucked up out of his mind, takes the CAT to some party that Boris had told him Kotku’s weed dealer was going to, but he is too stupid to think about the possibility that Boris might actually be there himself.

There’s not even a clear reason why Boris should be at the party – he is always with Kotku and Kotku never seems to _not_ have weed, he steals alcohol like it is his job, and he doesn’t particularly like anyone they know in Vegas. Why would he go to a party like that when he can just stay at Kotku’s seedy apartment so they can have sex seven times a day or whatever the fuck it is they do together?

Yet, Boris is there when Theo walks into one of the upstairs rooms of this nearly empty house, and so is Kotku, sitting between his legs, her back pressed against Boris’ chest as he talks to a guy next to them that Theo immediately recognizes as the dealer he’s looking for.

Kotku notices him first. She has on a small tank top that shows just how bony her arms are and there are the familiar dredges of black makeup under her eyes, a look that Theo can never tell if she's smudged it that way on purpose or if she’s just been crying; either was just as likely as the other. Boris has a skinny arm thrown around her shoulders, the two of them spindly and dressed in all black, looking more like siblings than boyfriend and girlfriend.

The sight of them makes him a little bit sick like it always does, but he has to step forward and say something, if only because of the way Kotku’s wide, piercing eyes are trained on him like an owl. “Hey.”

At the sound of his voice, Boris’ head whips around in surprise. His pupils are blown out and his hair is a curly mess, puffing up at his ears, signaling to Theo that he hasn’t cut it in a while. It’d been about a week since they’d seen each other last and Boris had spent the whole time going on and on about Kotku shit, so Theo had spent the whole time nursing several bottles of beer.

“Potter!” Boris announces, his voice loud and eccentric. “I cannot believe you are here!” He scrambles up to meet Theo and he smells like cigarette smoke and the cheap, fruity scent of Kotku’s soap.

“Boris, _you_ told me to come here,” Theo grumbles and Boris’ expression turns puzzled as he racks his brain.

He ends up shrugging. “Ah, yes, maybe I did. Either way, a wonderful thing that you have arrived! Jason –” he gestures to the guy he was just talking to, “ – has best weed in town, really good shit, will make you feel blasted in moments. Come on, come on.”

They all smoke together, Kotku dismissively saying hi to him as she passes him the joint, her hand so nimble and thin that he’s afraid he’s going to break her if their fingers brush. Then Boris smokes through half a pack of cigarettes, offering a few to Theo, and the atmosphere of the room becomes hazy as Theo’s body starts to feel heavier and the light and the sounds from the rest of the house downstairs seems slower, reverberated back up to them through time.

Boris drags them all out of the party soon enough and they end up in their drug dealer’s car somehow, for reasons Theo doesn’t even pretend to follow along with. He and Kotku sit in the backseat, the pleather sticking to their skin, as Boris animatedly talks in the passenger seat, glancing back every once in a while at the two of them erratically as if to prove his point. They get drive through fast food, greasy tacos that drip as they bite into them while Kotku slowly eats through a kid’s carton of fries, staying silent the entire time they’re in the car as Boris talks and talks and talks, only sometimes reaching back to touch her on the knee or coo at her. They smoke more until it hazes up the windows and Kotku coughs so hard that her eyes water.

Boris and the other guy eventually get out of the car at some point to go into a store. Theo forgets to ask what for, but this leaves him in the backseat with Kotku, who, in a surprising turn of events, does not follow Boris for once.

Instead the two of them perch awkwardly on the edges of their seats, only a foot away from each other, fidgeting and not looking at the other. Theo almost leaves it like that, both of them in stale silence for however long until Boris finally comes back with drinks or pills or more food or whatever it is he left for, but then Theo starts to feel antsy.

He spares a look at Kotku and finds her sitting with her arms crossed over her chest, staring blankly at the dashboard in front of them, a mean set to her mouth that always intimidates Theo. Somehow, she's even more scary when Boris isn't around. She seems more like an actual person instead of just a vulnerable little thing that Boris takes care of.

Theo coughs into his fist. “How’s your other boyfriend doing?” He asks, unable to keep the patronizing tone from out of his voice, “You know, the one who does the pool cleaning?”

Kotku’s eyes flash with annoyance. “Did Boris tell you about that?” Her voice is high and shrill like always and Theo finds it makes her seem younger than she actually is.

“Yeah.”

“Hm,” she says and turns to look out the car window, seemingly scanning the black, empty parking lot for Boris to fight with him over this, “Of course he would. I can’t tell him anything without him talking to you about it.”

The truth is that Theo and Boris hadn’t been talking much at all, that Kotku’s arrival into their life had mostly ripped whatever they had to shreds, but he’s not willing to let her know how much she’s changed.

“Boris is good at keeping secrets. He wouldn’t tell anyone else but me –”

“But why does he need to tell _you_ at all?” She sounds more than frustrated – she sounds sad, but some part of her sadness keeps Theo alive, the thought that she can’t have all of Boris that she wants.

He shrugs, happy to let her drown in the misery for a moment. It makes her scowl. “I’m Boris' only other friend,” he tells her as he eats the last of the soggy fries from his meal. 

“You two are more than just friends,” Kotku spits back, crossing her arms over her chest again. He can’t tell if she means what Boris always says, that they’re brothers, blood of my blood, heart of my heart, flesh of my flesh type of family, or if she means something else, but he finds he doesn’t mind it, even as her words make his heart beat fast. He likes the threat of something else, likes the cruelty of how unloved it might make her feel.

Theo sneers at her, “What? Are you jealous?” It comes out catty, like the girls at his school in New York who used to hang around Tom Cable, always vying for his attention and getting upset when some other girl got it, and he wishes immediately that he could take the words back.

She shakes her head, not even looking at him, just gazing out of her window out into the dark parking lot. “You’re such a fucking kid,” she tells him, hugging herself, tucking her small arms around her torso, “Not everything is about you.”

The sound of the doors opening cuts through the air as the car dashboard lights up and the boys slide in, Boris with a wild grin on his face when he turns around to look at them in the back seat. He seems unaware of the tension between them and keeps grinning. “You two had fun conversation, yes? Look at what we got,” and he shows them a small bag of assorted pills, a couple for each of them.

Theo takes his with a swig of his flat Sprite as they drive out to the far dredges of the desert and back to Canyon Shadows, familiar rows of vacant houses and dusty driveways, the car radio switched onto a station that plays old music that Boris doesn’t like.

Even after they drop Theo home, for the rest of the night he can’t stop thinking about the sliver of desperation in Kotku’s voice. _Not everything is about you._ Like she was begging, for a moment, to be able to have this, to not have Theo intrude. It makes him a little sick, the thought that apparently he is enough of a threat to have her be worried, just a bit, even if she lies through her teeth about it.

The place Theo has his engagement party is very fancy, something that doesn’t necessarily surprise Boris but certainly impresses him as he walks through it: high ceilings, marble floors, shiny wood banisters, the smell of old people and old things. It feels quite emblematic of the Theo he knows now with his stiff posture and crisp suits, the buttons of his dress shirt closed all the way up, little polished boy trying so hard to seem like anything but a fuck up.

Boris looks for him in the throngs of people, standing up on his tiptoes to peer over the graying heads of old men whose hands shake as they put their drinks to their mouths, but there are a million guys here with flat, brown hair and nice suits on. Boris sighs, thinking about how this could take longer than he thought, which would be bad for them, bad for arriving on time for their flights, bad for the Russian driver he has waiting around the corner, bad, bad, bad.

“Boris?”

Boris whips around wildly, caught off guard by the voice of someone here who apparently knows him other than Theo, and then his eyes fall on a girl a couple feet away from him. She’s small and mousy, and for a moment Boris cannot shake the feeling of how he _knows_ her, but it’s the red hair that does it. Red hair that Theo went on and on about when he got too drunk. _She’s beautiful Boris, she’s – I can’t even explain it, but she’s different. She’s just different than everybody else._ And then he would vomit on the carpet or slip himself into the pool, sinking like a rock in the deep end, and Boris would sigh and fish him out, drag him to bed and clean him up as Theo chanted under his breath, _I miss her, I miss her, I miss her._

He realizes with a start that this must be the girl Theo is marrying then, and he stands up straighter, blinks to clear his eyes and makes sure he is getting a clear picture of her.

He goes, “Miss Pippa?” and she gives a burst of warm laughter. It’s too loud for a gathering like this and the jarring sound makes a few people peer at them with haughty looks, but Pippa does not seem to notice.

Instead she walks toward him, a slight limp in her step, her eyes blinking in amazement. “I can’t believe it’s you. Hobie did say –”

Pippa continues on, but Boris is too distracted by the sight of her to listen. He can immediately see all the ways that she is broken just like Theo. A blast like that, trauma like that – you wear it on your skin even if you don’t want to. Maybe anybody would be able to see there was _something_ a little wrong with her, but Boris, who had lived for months on end sleeping so close to Theo at night that he would notice immediately if a pale freckle bloomed on the curve of Theo’s cheek from being out in the sun all day, identifies the cracked parts of her in a simple second.

It’s mostly the way she carries herself that informs the rest of her: shoulders tight and hunched to her body, arms hugging herself loosely, back rigid as she moves — there is no openness about her. She is manufactured. Broken little pieces of a child haphazardly glued together in an attempt to make an adult. 

Seeing her in person burns Boris’ heart a little bit. It feels like he has finally found the matching set to a childhood doll he’s coveted dearly for years only to realize there is another object to consider in his love. He imagines Theo standing next to her, the two parts of them like the halves of those cracked heart necklaces that some of the girls in high school would wear around their wrists. A matching set of bomb blasts and dead parents.

 _She will look pretty in a wedding dress,_ he thinks passively, imagining her copper hair laying against white fabric. 

“ – I just can’t believe it! I’ve heard so much about you over the years.” 

Boris smiles widely at her. “Ah, yes!” He says, stepping closer and slinging his arm around her shoulders to pull her close. She responds more positively than Theo would and lets herself be touched, but he still catches her initial flinch. “Same here! You are a beauty, look at you! You could not imagine how many stories and things I have heard. He used to go on and on about you, you know? Talked my ear off! _Oh Pippa, Pippa, Pippa, Pippa._ ”

Pippa laughs but it’s cautious. “Really?” Her face is a little confused. “You know, we only saw each other a couple times as kids before I moved –”

“I know, yes, but does that not make it all the more wonderful that now we are here, huh?” He squeezes her in comradery and then gestures grandly, “It is fate, like they say.”

“It is,” she nods, and then takes a moment to just smile at him, like he’s a movie character who has popped out of the screen. “I’m _really_ glad that you made it. It will make Theo so happy –”

Boris lets out a dry laugh before he can stop himself. He ducks down to whisper in her ear like it’s a secret, “You know, I am not so sure. He has been angry with me recently.” He knows Theo will throw a bit of a fit when Boris tells him why he is here and what they have to do, but he also knows that Theo will go. Anything for the little bird.

Pippa frowns. “Oh, Theo gets like that sometimes. I think all this –” she gestures to the large room around them, the people milling so close to each other they have no other option than to touch shoulders, “– I think it stresses him out.” She looks like she wants to say more, but she bites her tongue.

Boris tries to nod sympathetically. “Yes, yes, I can imagine. But it is quite a thing to pull off! Amazing and beautiful! Must have taken months of planning from you both.”

Pippa gives another loud laugh. “What?” She asks, furrowing her eyebrows but still smiling through her confusion.

Before Boris can say anything else, they notice that Theo is bounding through the crowd toward them with a look of palpable worry on his face that makes Boris want to snicker. The same face he always had on when Boris would talk to Mr. Decker downstairs in the Vegas house about money and deals and horoscopes, things Theo gave less than one shit about but still did not want Boris to discuss with his father. The same face Theo always pulled when Boris wandered too close to other people, like Boris was a puppy in training who had not yet learned not to piss on everyone he meets.

“Hello!” Pippa greets when Theo comes close, all bright and cheery and sweet. Both her and Boris extend their arms out for him on instinct, formally welcoming him into their conversation. “We were just talking about you!”

Theo’s face pales a little at the words. Boris grins, throws an arm around Theo’s shoulders, and exclaims, “Potter! Am happy to see you!”

When Theo goes, “Same here,” Boris is touched by how genuine he seems. A bud of guilt blooms in his chest at what he is here to do. Maybe in a weirder, kinder, better world, Boris would show up to Theo’s wedding parties only to get drunk and celebrate with him, but Boris knows that these types of thoughts go nowhere, so he stops them quickly.

Theo introduces the two of them as if Boris does not already know Pippa’s heart and soul through how much she touched Theo when he was younger, but Theo’s face is so lovestruck throughout the whole introduction that Boris is embarrassed for him.

Boris glances between Theo and Pippa and immediately realizes that they are not quite as harmonious as he thought they might be together. That, somehow, seeing them stand only a few feet apart brings out the worst in each of them, like maybe their wounds bubble to the surfaces of their skin when they are in the vicinity of each other. When Theo tells Boris that Pippa actually _isn’t_ the girl he’s marrying, it makes him question Theo’s supposed desire for her even more.

Selfishly, it also makes Boris feel relieved. He does not care to do any examining on exactly why. He knows it would be useless. That it would be bad. He just takes Theo by the shoulder and pulls him aside, saying, “We have to leave,” an iteration of the same conversation they’ve been having for years and years, stretched across time. Always have to go, one of them always trying to run away or sprint into the desert until something bad happens, one of them always leaving, go out the back door take the dog so Dad doesn’t see, go downstairs so Xandra will not yell at me get me some tea please thank you, go see Kotku then I don’t care Boris I really don’t. Theo with the puppy under his arm and a yellow taxi behind him, Boris running down the dark street, his hands and lips tingling from where they were just touching Theo. Boris, I have to leave, you don’t understand, they’ll put me in a home, come to New York with me. No, Potter. I have to stay. Stay with me. Just one more day. Just one more month. You don’t understand. No, it is all go, go, go. Goodbyes and kisses and heavy tongues. That stupid little bird wedged between the two of them for all the wrong reasons.

Except now, years later, it is Boris doing the asking. _Come with me._

And Theo does.

It’s Christmas time, a year since Amsterdam, when Theo comes home to Boris still half naked in bed.

The double doors to the bedroom of Theo’s apartment are wide open when he walks in, framing the image of Boris’ pale torso tangled with white sheets and his dense head of curls black against the pillows. At the sound of Theo coming inside, Popchyk’s little head pops up from the mess of covers and blinks at him, until a moment later he settles back down with his snout touching Boris’ forehead, the same position he’s always preferred to sleep on the bed which, sadly for Theo, was as close to Boris as possible.

Theo begins unpacking the bags of groceries he’s brought home onto the dining room table. The fridge here, like most of the apartment, is basically empty since he’d spent most of this year living outside of it, in airport VIP lounges and stale hotel rooms across the country and sometimes in other parts of the world. Although this place has belonged to him ever since he made the decision to move out of Welty’s old room, he lived in about as much as Boris did, who only came to New York in short bursts do whatever work he had to do and meet whatever people he had to meet and conveniently always had nowhere to stay except at Theo’s.

A voice pipes up from the other room, “Did you bring me breakfast?”

“No, it’s four in the afternoon.” Theo doesn’t even have to look to know that Boris is pouting. “We have the party tonight.”

Boris goes, “Hm,” and then turns over even deeper into the covers. “Will you not make me breakfast then? You would rather leave me to die?”

Theo unpacks a box of pirozhnoe kartoshka, one of Boris’ favorite desserts and something that Theo had to go to two different Russian bakeries to get, but he won’t say anything about it until Boris finds them when he’s rummaging through the fridge later. “Like I said, it’s four in the afternoon. We have to be at the Barbours in two hours. You can just eat there.”

“And what will they serve me? A whole bottle of champagne for breakfast?” Boris sits up and blinks the sleep blearily out of his eyes. He has indentations on one of his cheeks from the pillow and his curls have been haphazardly pushed in front of his face. It makes him look younger, like he’s sixteen again and rising from the dead to tell Theo that they need to skip school today or else he will vomit all over the hallways. “Sounds like Vegas. Thought we were trying to be better about that stuff, eh, Potter?”

Theo rolls his eyes at this, even though it is half true. There are still marks on Boris’ arm that they barely say a word about, but many of them are faded. Theo certainly isn’t living the same lifestyle he was a year ago, breakdowns and spirals and pills that cause only more breakdowns and spirals. He does still drink – sometimes too much – but he’s sober a lot more often than he’s not, and maybe that isn’t what people call progress, but for them it is something _._ Something that can be thrown out the window at a moment’s notice, sure, but whatever. Theo will take it.

Boris falls back against the mattress dramatically and Theo hears Popchyk start to lick his face. He clucks at the dog, saying something in Russian that Theo can’t really understand except for Boris calling Popchyk _old guy_. Then Boris says, “Come here,” and it takes a moment for Theo realizes Boris is talking to him and not the dog.

Theo wanders over to the bed where Boris is sprawled, torso exposed, plum marks on his neck that are the product of Theo’s mouth. “What?” He asks with his eyebrows raised, looking down at Boris.

“Come to bed,” Boris says and he reaches out to pull Theo closer by the belt loop.

“Boris, it’s –”

“Four in the afternoon, yes, yes, I know. You have told me many times.” He drags Theo even closer, his finger still hooked around Theo’s waistline. “Come to bed.”

“We don’t have time,” Theo mutters, but he’s stepping out of his shoes and putting them to the side.

“You do not have time to lay in bed?” Boris starts putting a finger up for everything he lists off, “You cannot make food, you cannot wake me up –”

“You’re an _asshole_ whenever I try to wake you up, you always have been –”

“Apparently you cannot do anything but go to grocer’s and complain.”

Theo scowls at him, falling into the other side of the bed, the pillows and covers providing him with instant comfort that he can’t help but sink into. “You don’t just want to lay in bed with me. We can’t –”

“Jesus Christ, Potter. Do you ever shut up?” Boris asks, scooping Popchyk to his chest, maybe for warmth, but mostly so he can get closer to Theo without a dog in the way. Then he lays there with the dog in his arms and with his eyes closed, looking like a patron saint, like he has never thought about having sex in his life, actually. “Maybe you would be happier person if you just close your mouth sometimes, a little bit.”

“I’m happy.” 

Boris lets out a noise of disbelief. “Bullshit. You spent all of last night complaining about some bitch who made you pay lot of money for one Hobie’s things until I made you shut up.”

“Yeah, and you spent all of last night going on and on about how Gyuri forgot to pick you up from the airport and you had to get a taxi here.”

Boris scrunches his nose up in disgust. “They smell like piss.”

“Welcome to New York.”

When Boris cracks one eye back open to look at him, there are the edges of amusement on his lips. Maybe he’d be laughing at Theo if he wasn’t so sleepy, but Theo can see his exhaustion in how slowly he blinks and the few yawns that he’s been stifling into his pillow. The two of them stare at each other from each side of their bed, and Theo admires Boris for a second, wondering how the stupid gangly kid he knew grew up into this person.

He inches closer to Boris. “Are you going to kiss me?”

Boris sighs. “I am getting there, you whore.”

He sits up to place the dog on the ground, Popchyk’s nails clicking against the floor as he slowly makes his way into the kitchen to get water, and then Boris turns back around and leans over Theo to kiss him in one swift movement. His hand lays softly on the curve of Theo’s cheek and the kiss is very sweet, much more chaste than Boris usually is.

It leaves Theo a little dizzy after Boris moves away from him, hanging over him with both of his arms on either side of Theo, closing him in and making him feel small. Theo blinks up at him.

“What? Was that not good enough for you?” Boris teases, raising his eyebrows up. “You kiss back worse than a fucking wall. I know many whores who are better at –”

“Boris, shut up,” Theo mutters as he reaches up to bring Boris back down to him, their mouths pressing together warmly.

Theo is allowed to bring guests to Mrs. Barbour’s holiday party, so he brings Hobie, Pippa, and Boris. Toddy brings some sweet new girl from college, Kitsey brings Tom Cable, and Platt brings a bottle of Cognac.

A few other people are invited as well – friends of the family – but only a few. All three of the Barbour children have spent the last year trying to introduce normalcy back into their mother’s life, things of the past like inviting people over and hosting parties. It must be going marginally well, Theo guesses, or otherwise they wouldn’t be showing up at the apartment on a Friday night with the soft sound of chatter bleeding through the other side of the door.

Theo fidgets as he looks at the painted white grain of the wood before someone opens it to let them inside. It’s not the first time his two worlds have collided like this, but it is the first time it's happened so harshly. Pippa and Boris had only had fleeting acquaintances with the Barbours in the past year, coincidental meetings on the street or in restaurants when Theo was with one of them. However, Hobie had taken to calling Mrs. Barbour every month since they'd met at the engagement party and hit it off. It’s the reason why Theo feels comfortable bringing them all here in the first place, but it is also the reason it makes him so anxious; he’s not sure he wants there to be any more overlap than that.

The party is far from exciting, something Boris reminds Theo of every thirty minutes with looks across the room and stifled laughter at the things Mrs. Barbour’s socialite friends say, but Theo knows that it’s just because some part of Boris is antsy. Boris is good with people, always has been since they were kids, but there are certain environments that he just does not belong in, and Samantha Barbour’s upstate New York apartment is one of them. It is a sign of his loyalty to Theo that he even agreed to come at all, and something about that makes Theo’s stomach squirm. 

Maybe he was here just because he had nothing else to do – Boris is wild and impulsive and really will go anywhere you drag him to – but he had also flown into New York early specifically for this. He’d planned on coming to the city for Christmas anyways, but during a phone call when Theo had offhandedly mentioned this party, Boris had said over the phone, _I will get in the night before then, yes?_ It took Theo a moment to reply back with, _Y_ _eah, sure,_ pretending like he was not completely blindsided by the fact that Boris even wanted to come.

So now Boris was here, looking out of place in his Yves Saint Laurent silk button up and black dress pants with one of those ridiculously expensive looking watches proudly on his wrist. No matter how hard Boris tries to clean up, there is a part of him that is always a little dirty and dangerous. Theo doesn't mind it, but he can see the way people like Toddy and Platt widen their eyes at it.

He thinks Kitsey might say something about it to him when they run into each other in the kitchen, Theo fixing himself another drink and Kitsey coming back from the bathroom to find her discarded martini waiting for her on the kitchen counter.

Instead Kitsey takes a sip of her drink and asks, “Is he your boyfriend?”

It makes Theo choke. He turns to look at her, dazed. “What?” 

She rolls her eyes. “Come on, Theo.” She shrugs so casually. “It makes sense, anyway.”

“It makes sense?”

“Of course. I mean – you were never really there when we were together, were you? You were always sort of –” she pinches her lips together, “ – faraway.”

“Kitsey,” Theo says in disbelief, “ _You_ were never really there. You were cheating on me –”

She frowns, already frustrated with him. “And didn’t it make sense when you found out? Don’t tell me you were surprised.” Her eyes flash with a sort of intensity that makes Theo realize he can’t back out of this conversation - a conversation he never thought he’d really have. It’s surprising to be talking like this with Kitsey, who was always a little hard to pin down whenever there was a serious matter to discuss, but he supposes their relationship has changed since what happened between them last year.

Theo presses his lips together for a moment and then relents, “Sure, it clicked a lot of things into place, I’ll admit. But what does that have to do –”

“You left our engagement party with him –”

“That was about something _completely_ unrelated –”

“You still left with him. I saw it.” She flicks a piece of her hair back behind her shoulder, a sweet little blonde curl. He used to watch her sit at her vanity for hours and style it, thinking how she was just like her mother. “And he stays with you sometimes, right? That’s what Hobie says to Mommy on the phone.”

Theo narrows his eyes down at her. “He’s not my boyfriend, Kitsey.” It takes concentrated effort for Theo to even get out the word _boyfriend,_ and he spares a quick look to the doorway of the kitchen like he’s worried someone else from the party will have heard him say it.

Kitsey laughs lightly, unfazed by Theo’s stubbornness. “I’m not trying to offend,” she says and plays idly with the toothpick in her martini, “You’re just different with him. Different than you were with me. Different than you are with Pippa.”

She raises her gaze to look at him, standing her ground firmly like she’s innocent in this battle, simply stating facts. So Kitsey-like to play a game at a love that isn’t even hers. Theo’s jaw tightens, especially at the mention of Pippa, something the two of them have never spoken about before.

He puts on his best liar voice, the same tone he’d always used with those few customers that had realized the changelings weren’t what they paid for. “Kitsey, I don’t know what you’re saying,” and then he huffs a hollow little laugh.

She levels him with a look that tells Theo all he needs to know about what she thinks of him, and then she shakes her head and takes a moment to gaze out into the foyer, where Tom Cable is talking to Boris and Pippa. Theo follows her line of sight, anxiety churning steadily in his gut.

Boris is gesturing animatedly as he talks, eyes widening for emphasis, smiling widely, his arms and shoulders and hands all moving along with the story he’s telling. When he’s done and it’s Tom’s turn to speak, he rests his chin in his hand and an expression forms on his face that would read as blank to anyone else, but Theo can tell that he’s unimpressed. Boris listens as Tom speaks, smiling to himself in a few places here and there, like Tom’s saying something he doesn’t realize is funny, and then when Tom is called away by Platt to go to the bar, Boris turns quickly to Pippa and whispers something into her ear that makes her burst out in bright, warm laughter. She shakes her head at him, unable to stop smiling, and he grins so wide at her that it makes Theo’s stomach light up, touched that the two of them get along as well as they do.

Kitsey’s voice brings him out of the moment and back to the kitchen. “Have you ever loved someone this much before?” Her tone is light and airy, and when he turns to look at her, he finds her eyes still trained on Tom’s back, like she’s mostly talking about herself and Tom but she’s asking Theo, too. 

The rawness of the words takes him out, and Kitsey stands there, gazing at Tom Cable, as if she hasn’t punched holes out of Theo’s lungs, making it hard for him to breath. He tries to blink away his dizziness, but suddenly everything seems a little off as her voice swirls around in his head. _Have you ever loved someone this much before?_ And the answer, blinding and immediately apparent to Theo, is no, of course not.

He knows he loves Boris. He has loved Boris for a very long time, but the love they’ve shared has always been undefined – brotherly but more than that, messy but also somehow the purest thing Theo knows – which made it safe. It’s not even that he can’t recognize how important Boris is to him. Of course he knows. Boris is Vegas and Boris is the white moon in a desert sky and Boris is the Goldfinch as well, Amsterdam and blood and the snow, and now he is even more things – the left side of the bed in Theo’s apartment, rich Russian treats with names that sweetly tumble out of his mouth, the sharp scent of his cologne that is too close to the one Theo’s father always wore. 

But to have someone like Kitsey spell it out so easily makes it different. It feels like Theo has a weight sitting on top of his chest, dragging him down with its poignancy.

Theo swallows, but it’s as though his throat has grown two sizes, like he’s had an allergic reaction to her words. “Kitsey…” he says, and maybe it’s supposed to be a warning, but she knows him well enough to hear the notes of desperation in his voice. She turns to look at him with a frown.

“It’s alright to be happy, Theo,” she says, and she sounds like someone calm and collected with ages of wisdom over him, so unlike the person he knows her as.

“I’m happy.”

She almost laughs. “I mean actually happy. I mean letting the good things into your life and giving them a name.” 

He can’t help but roll his eyes at these perfect ideas of love and companionship she’s always had. “Is that what you did with Tom?” 

“Yes,” she says firmly, clutching her glass just a little harder, “And I think it’s worked out pretty well. Maybe you should try living like a normal person for once.”

The sound of knuckles rapping against the kitchen doorway strikes through their tension. “Hello, hello,” Boris says, leaning against the molding casually, a placid smile on his face as his eyes dart between the two of them until they decide on her. “Kitsey.” He greets, nodding his head toward her in acknowledgement, but his accent makes it sounds more like _kitty._

She shoots him a tight lipped smile. “Boris.”

“Your boy needs you,” he says, tipping his head to the side in a gesture toward the foyer behind him, “Is talking with your mother. Seems a little nervous, so I thought, well, I will go get lovely lady, help him out.”

Kitsey’s eyes immediately start searching for Tom again, and she starts walking away from the two of them without much of a nod or goodbye. Theo watches as she finds Tom sitting by Mrs. Barbour and leans down to kiss him on the cheek before saying, _Hi Mommy,_ in her darling daughter voice.

In the wake of her absence, Boris remarks, “She is a bitch,” and then turns back around to Theo, “but I like her very much for it, I think.”

This startles a laugh out of Theo. “What?” He asks, bewildered at the idea of Boris thinking of Kitsey at all.

Boris shrugs and holds up his hands in innocence, a drink occupying one of them. “She is icy but fun, you know? Think we would get along very well if –”

“No,” Theo goes, “No, no, no –”

“You are such fucking baby,” Boris remarks, mirroring Theo's stance and leaning back against the marble kitchen counter, “What did she say? You looked scared shitless before I came to save you, all white in the face.”

Boris turns to look at him, his eyes a little bright from the booze, and there’s the hint of a smile starting on his lips, like it is just waiting for an excuse to jump out. Theo wants to take his face and kiss him so badly, an urge so undeniable all of a sudden that he has to clutch his drink harder to stop his hands from moving all on their own. It sends his head spinning, Boris under the bright lights of the Barbour apartment, casually standing in the same kitchen that Theo would sometimes stand in as a child, zombie-like and chalk full of grief. That Boris is not here by accident.

Theo knocks back the rest of his drink and goes, “Nothing really,” swallowing the truth down with his alcohol.

There’s disbelief on Boris' face, but he doesn’t prod for anything else. “You will be scared of women all your life, Potter,” he tsks as he turns away to start walking back into the foyer, “Come on, Mr. Hobie was telling Pippa all about mahogany wood dresser or something, you would not want to miss out.”

Boris looks back to shoot him a smile, to make sure he’s coming, and Theo smiles back despite himself. He moves to follow Boris into the other room, touching his elbow lightly and steering him around the couch. “Well, let’s go rescue her then."

It's only later in the night when the two of them are back home watching some movie on TV, much drunker than they had been at the party, that Theo goes, “Kitsey asked me if you were my boyfriend.” There is a buzzing in his teeth as he admits it, one that makes him tighten his jaw.

A noise comes from Boris’ throat, his eyebrows raising at the words like this is a very interesting question. He’s on the other side of the couch, his limbs all splayed out since he has never known what personal space is. “And what did you say?” 

“No.”

“You said no?” Boris gasps, and then he leans over to cuff Theo on the side of the head, hard. “You piece of shit.”

Theo hisses as he touches the side of his head, the pain blooming through his skin. “What? Are you my boyfriend?”

“Fuck no,” Boris says and makes a funny Russian gesture with his hands, “That is for preteens. But still –”

Theo rolls his eyes. “What did you want me to say?”

“This is Boris, my husband –”

“Fuck off,” Theo remarks as Boris cackles, loud and maniacal, and then Theo shoves him deeper into the cushions.

“We could get married in Vegas! Call up Xandra, make her our witness.”

Theo breathes out a laugh, the energy of their conversation making him jittery. “I doubt she still lives there. Can you imagine? Old lady Xandra in a house on the edge of the desert or still working at that stupid bar on the strip.”

“Maybe she found new man, new dog, new drugs.” Boris shrugs as he takes a swig of his drink and then sticks his cold feet under Theo’s thigh to warm them up.

There’s something sweet between them that they won’t talk about, but it makes Theo feel like they’re kids again, like the last ten years haven’t happened and they’ve been fifteen this whole time. There’s a million little things that are trying to crawl up his throat and out through his mouth, garbled declarations of love or something even stupider, but thankfully he’s good at keeping all of that behind his teeth. 

Theo looks over at Boris on the other side of the couch, the TV lighting up his face in different colors as it moves from scene to scene. He used to watch Boris like this for hours when they were kids, drunk and the entire world spinning around him except for Boris’ face, the one image that was stark and clear, a beacon of something familiar in a sea of terrible things.

Theo pipes up, “We couldn’t get married, anyway. What about your wife and kids?”

He watches Boris’ face almost imperceptibly tighten. A moment of silence. “I have something to tell you.”

“I know they’re not real, Boris. Those kids don’t look a fucking thing like you.”

Boris turns to look at him and gasps. “What do you mean?” He asks, sitting up to peer closer to Theo. “What do you mean? Alright, so maybe they are not my kids and wife, maybe they are story I made up from a photo I found but –” he raises a finger up when Theo tries to interrupt, “ – but there is no reason I could not have children like that or wife like that.”

Theo laughs, bewildered. “Who do you think falls for that? Whatever mafia bosses you’re dealing with suddenly know you have a hot Nordic wife and he shows pity on you?”

Boris tsks. “You would be surprised how many people change at mention of family – suddenly I am not Boris, mysterious and dangerous man, but I am now Boris, father of two.” More laughter rips out of Theo and Boris leans forward to tackle him. “You are shithead. Stop laughing at me.”

They end up falling to the floor, wrestling each other until Theo roughly pushes Boris away, hissing as he reminds Boris that he’s wearing the pants from one of his Turnbull and Asser suits, something Boris dismisses immediately as he moves in again to push Theo down into the carpet, forcing Theo to fight back.

They play fight until Theo clocks Boris hard in the jaw and then Boris roughs him up so badly that he has to stumble away and throw up in the kitchen sink, their childish movements too intense for the amount of alcohol swirling around in his stomach. Boris cackles loudly as Theo retches, and if Theo closed his eyes he could almost pretend they were back in Vegas. _Thank God,_ he thinks to himself, _thank God that we’re here instead._

“Alright, alright, let us go to bed,” Boris finally agrees as Theo spits down the drain, trying to get the taste of vomit out of his mouth to no avail, “Would not want you to throw up on your fruity little pants.”

“Fuck off,” Theo groans as he hangs his head in the sink, the metallic basin echoing his words back into his ears.

They fall into bed like a mess, Popchyk asleep in the other room because he's too old to deal with them this drunk anymore. When the two of them kiss it’s mostly teeth, disgusting and sloppy and nothing either of them would be proud about in the morning, but Theo likes the sharp pain of Boris biting down on his bottom lip until it puffs up and bleeds. He likes how tender it is the next day, the way blood leaks into his mouth as they kiss.

Sometimes he wonders about where this is all going, the two of them. He wonders if they can even keep it going. But there's something to be said about the way Boris is around more and more often these days, always trying to align his visits to New York with the exact days that Theo is in town before he has to leave again to buy back another changeling. Or about how Hobie always comments that Theo seems happier when Boris is in the city, that he’s never seen Theo this easygoing in his whole life. Theo could also spend hours talking about how Boris is a pain in his fucking ass and he’s dirty and he’s stinky and he argues with Theo until Theo wants to walk in front of a train, but also how Boris is one of the only people in his life who makes him feel loved, even when he is being dismissive and sometimes downright cruel.

Maybe Kitsey and whatever therapy she’s been doing for the past year are right, maybe it wouldn’t be the end of the world to put such a fine point on these things, but Theo really doesn’t give a shit. He has Boris already. He doesn’t need much else.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr @ [boosfic](https://boosfic.tumblr.com/) !


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